


The Elements Of Composition

by HenryMercury



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crack, Art, Avatar Huan, Gen, The Legend Of Huan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4724717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's something missing," says Huan. "This piece, it's so <i> unbalanced." <i></i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elements Of Composition

**Author's Note:**

> 3am crack ideas exacerbated and enabled by [avulle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/avulle).
> 
> I'm also henrymercury on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/); come talk to me.

"There's something missing," says Huan. "This piece, it's so _unbalanced_."

"Honey, _I_ think it looks wonderful," his mother says. Huan had been so absorbed in his work that he hadn't actually noticed her standing behind him.

"I wasn't _talking_ to you," he grumbles.

"Then who—" Mother trails off as she realises he'd been talking to himself. She should be used to it by now.

"Did you want something?" he asks when she doesn't leave.

"Yes. Master Tenzin is asking again whether you're ready to commence your airbending training, on Air Temple Island. I told him the same thing as before, that he should come here to teach you, since this is where your home and family are—"

"And all my art supplies," Huan finishes with a huff. "Tell him I won't just _abandon_ my studio like that."

Huan looks at the metallic structure in front of him, is conscious of its curves and edges like they're extensions of his own body. He bends one steel strip just slightly to the left, but the proportions still aren't right.

"He also said,"—Mother, apparently, is still here—"that Republic City would be very interested in hosting an exhibition in the Avatar's honour. You'd be able to showcase your works to a huge audience."

Huan turns away from his failure of a sculpture and faces his mother instead. He feels his anger contorting his face, and is glad that at least _one_ mode of self-expression is still working for him right now.

"What's the point in having an exhibition if there's nothing to exhibit?" he demands. "This sculpture _clearly_ isn't working, I've got two adequate watercolour pieces out of my last two hundred attempts, and whenever I show people my abstract ash drawings they tell me I shouldn't firebend near where I keep my art paper because then these accidents wouldn't happen!"

His mother lays a hand on his shoulder, clearly intending to comfort him. His whole body tenses under it.

"Not everyone has the capacity to understand your unique brand of genius, Huan," she says.

And Huan knows that; he knows that art is subjective, and that his style of art in particular is something of an acquired taste. He likes it that way—but the world doesn't. The world wants its Avatar to speak to it in the simplest language. The world wants newsreader talk, four word slogans and hurried press conferences. People want the world's problems set out and solved like some simple mathematical equation, and they think that when Huan stands staring at a blank canvas he's turning his back on his Avatar responsibilities to the world.

Sure, he'd _like_ to turn his back on his Avatar responsibilities to the world. He didn't _ask_ to be born with his whole life already planned out for him, ready to be dictated to him by people who don't care what his dreams and aspirations are. But that isn't what he's doing when he paints, or sculpts, or makes patterns with ash. Art is the only way he can explore the impossible questions of life deeply enough to maybe one day find an answer. If he can figure out how to implement harmony on the face of a canvas, and restore balance to a failing composition, then maybe he'll finally feel ready to be the Avatar. He's not going to try and make his mark on the world without preliminary sketches, though.

"I know a lot of people would be interested in works depicting your past lives." Mother always knows the worst thing to say.

"I'm trying to be an _individual_ ," Huan tells her. In the overflow of emotion, he crumples half his metal sculpture. He appraises it, and decides that the new texturing is an improvement.

"And you _are_ , honey. But you're also part of an important legacy. Two, in fact, considering our family name."

Huan would leave home one night to go and live as a nobody—and thus as _somebody_ for the first time, someone free to define their own someonehood—but he can't carry all his equipment on his back. He knows from experience that travelling without art supplies makes him feel like he's suffocating. It's like he can't speak, only a more profound restriction. If he simply takes a notebook away with him, he'll crave brushes and paints. If he tries to make do with the earth and metal around him, it'll only be a matter of time before he comes up with the perfect idea requiring calligraphy ink.

"I'll never fulfil my Avatar duties if people can't respect the way in which I choose to explore the conflicts and struggles of this world."

"Perhaps if you showed them your work they'd be more understanding? Perhaps you could even try something a little more... narrative."

Huan breathes through his nose—fast, heavy, enraged breaths. He holds a hand out towards the statue and the metal melts, sharp edges becoming blunt, pieces fusing together like snow makes the various boulders of a mountaintop look like just one. The unity of the melted section works, he decides, although the smoothed surface would look better with some detail added. Or some colour, perhaps. Yes, colour. Preferably a paint with some lustre.

"History is narrative," Huan explains, once he's calmed down enough to speak. "If people want stories they've already got them. If all they want is stories then there's no point in the Avatar being a person at all. The Avatar is a _person_ because the intense emotional wisdom required to lead the world into a new age can't be expressed in words."

"You should tell them that, then," Mother says. "Tell them exactly what you've just told me."

Huan already barely remembers what he's said; he's too focused on deciding which colour to start with.

"But I can tell them _better_ ," he insists. "Just as soon as this sculpture is finished. It will finally embody everything I've been trying to say all along."

Mother sighs. "I'll tell Tenzin it's definitely a _no_ , then."

"Maybe a dark blue base would work," Huan thinks aloud.


End file.
